jenjean70
Proud Parent
Wow! You sound like a great coach! I wish I had known about this and my son's coaches had known about this before he went through his super freak out last year and had issues the three years prior. I think he is working through them well now and going for new skills he is afraid of so that is a positive...but this information could have saved a lot of heart ache!Okay, apologies again for all the errors and run on sentences… and rambling. But it’s just a lot to cover and I am not a good writer.
I am going to start with the biggest subject which is fear.
Fear is a wide open swath of issues that can be interpreted differently. My definition of fear is “typical fear of any skill that eats away at the gymnast desire to conquer it”. Example, BHS on beam, “tummy hurts, back hurts, tired don’t want to do gymnastics anymore”. Typically we can just sit down with the child and find out what is bothering them and tell them it’s okay to be afraid and we will help them overcome fears.. or find another trick! It is also common to have fear if you don’t have the basics for the skill. We talk to the parents and ask that they ignore it and let us work it out. This will help us in reducing the risk of anxiety and Fear Issues. We do private lessons for fear, but not for “fear issues” .
A “Fear Issue” would be balking before or during a trick (usually an existing trick). This is a different animal. Always keep in mind that anxiety is the ultimate fuel for spreading fear issues so everything we do is to eliminate Anxiety and/or stop the fear issue at inception.
How do we do that? We learn from our mistakes, implement change and educate coaches and parents. The end result is less issues , however a total elimination of fear issues is not feasible. In other words, we are reducing our odds and increasing longevity.
What could cause fear issues and are common denominators.
*Vestibular issues (growth spurt) are a culprit for that first couple of balks after that anxiety takes over.
*Problems at home
*Problems at school
*Nervous child
*Nervous parent
*Nervous coach!
*Excessive parental viewing
*Parental pressure
*Excessive coaching pressure (asking the kid to do things that are not feasible in time frame allowed). Aka Pushing a child too fast
*A coach freaking out on a kid with fear issues will absolutely cause others in the group to catch the fear bug….
You will notice that most with the exception of Vestibular issues, all are either preventable or workable. And most importantly all of these examples will become fuel for anxiety.
Again, I am not here to debate what we do, I was asked to share this, so here it is. Our mission is to eliminate as much anxiety or potential anxiety as possible.
So how do we as a coaching staff try and stop fear issues from starting (notice I said try).
We do several things, but please note that Once the child becomes “self aware” of the fear issue it is difficult to deal with. So lets back up to that first balk.
The first thing we did in the gym was to adopt a 2 balk rule for skills the kids already have. Now the kids have no idea this is a rule because it’s a rule the coaches follow. The rule is during the same workout (a skill they already have , Example; running down the runway). First balk we ignore, second balk we immediately say, “hey I have been wanting you to work on something else today anyways”. We put them on a drill and act like that was our intent. Example. “oh wait why are you vaulting, my bad, I wanted you to do this today”. I can tell you that this approach has changed our balking level drastically. 9 times out of 10 the child returns to that event the next day and is totally fine. Its important to note that if the child balks once but goes the second time we do not react positively! We ignore it, that’s the goal, making it a non issue. At that point they will do maybe 2 more successful turns and call it a day, if they balk again we follow the 2 balk plan. Now lets circle back to “self aware” , what we are doing at the inception is everything to make sure they do not become self aware that they have a problem. In our experience a fear issue can be cemented in one workout, 3rd, 4th 5th turn . So we eliminate that. I will say that the exception could be a flyaway, for which case we can simply get on a block and spot them on a timer a couple of times, then call it a day without asking them to go alone.
Now lets say that child comes back the next day and balks again (twice)… We follow the same plan. If it happens again then we send them to a drill and absolutely take time off of the skill (or if it’s a flyaway we spot them on timers) . Depends on the child, could be a week or a month or..... This gives them a break and makes it look like we really don’t care which … drum roll…. Reduces the anxiety on the gymnasts end. The parents have to be totally on board as well, which is very difficult. Particularly since they happen oh…. The week prior to that first meet! In which case we are absolutely not doing that event at the meet. Time is your enemy or your friend people.
We try to educate the parents to about Anxiety and fear issues and ask them to stay out of gym for these reasons. They are allowed to drop in at any time but not all the time. One or two workouts a month are plenty. We also educate the parents about pressure.
Which means.
Staying out of the coaching aspect of the sport.
Don’t show disproval over performance. (you don’t have to lie, just keep it simple, “keep working at it you will get it” )
Please let us know if anything at home is bad (this is super important).
Please let us know if you DD does not want to get out of the car, feels sick when it’s gym time etc….
Please trust us when we keep your child in a level because they are not ready. (this is hard because not every gym is the same, but a track record exists online for anyone to look at it up, mymeetscores).
Please trust us when we put your kid in a certain group. (obviously this is different from gym to gym but we are talking about my gym).
Okay okay, so your kid already has fear issues, what to do? Eliminate all anxiety by ignoring it. Treat it like an injury because it is. It’s an injury of the mind. Time and patience are your only friends. Don’t do privates. Leave it be.
If we do all this does that mean we won't have fear issues? no but you will have WAY less,
Hope this helps just one person out there.
Next subject will be "Losing Interest", or more importantly keeping them interested.
